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Educators at Arizona State University are combining cultural characteristics from around the world to offer a new degree program in Indigenous architecture.

The Indigenous Placekeeping and Design Master Degree program coursework integrates traditional ecological knowledge from Indigenous communities worldwide and allows students to collaborate with Native nations in the U.S. Southwest, or look at case studies in Indigenous communities from South America, Asia and the Pacific.

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Wanda Dalla Costa, founder of the Indigenous Design Collaborative at ASU, said the program changes the approach to how architects typically work.

"Instead of coming in as the all-knowing architect," she said, "we promote something called spatial agency, where we give authorship back to our communities and enable them to contribute ideas to the final product of architecture."

The architects come out of the program with broad knowledge of existing structures, geography, sustainability and environmentalism. The hope is that it will help them consider other cultural norms when designing new buildings.

Noor Alzuhairi, now in her final semester, said she came in with the misconception that what she learned might only be applicable in North American Indigenous communities. She's now confident her education will be relevant anywhere.

"How do I differ from what we are taught to defining a new way of architecture that really lets the community be itself," she said, "instead of me imposing the solution on them?"

Dalla Costa said the program does use artificial intelligence, but she doesn't want it to control the curriculum. She said it's a challenge for educators to properly represent communities and resist giving artificial intelligence control over educational outcomes.